And maybe save a few marriages

Another weekend, and another spate of articles in the Sunday papers confirming it's High Time working practices at senior levels were changed. Stella, the Sunday Telegraph magazine, ran a story about the growing number of women who feel they may as well be single parents when they have children with partners caught on the treadmill of high-stress work and long hours. The author's marriage was saved only by a move to North Yorkshire where her husband joined a software company set up by another escapee from London wishing to buck the long hours culture.

Meanwhile, Rachel Johnson, writing in the Sunday Times, lamented the continuing lack of women directors despite nearly 40 years of the Equal Pay Act. A Goldman Sachs report last year quantified the financial benefits of closing the employement gap; and the Norwegian experience shows how quickly the gap can be overcome. Ms Johnson concludes that lasting workplace change will never take place from the bottom up, it must be top down.

Finally, some campaign news. Our lovely graphic design team has been working on ideas for a campaign badge and we'll be finalising an image shortly.

We'll be helping our kids too

Nirpal Dhaliwal, writing in today's Evening Standard urges adults to become more involved in children's lives, rather than criticising. If not, he warns, gang culture will fill the gaps in those lives where adults should be. His well founded comments make intuitive sense. I'm sure parents up and down the country want to be more involved in their children's lives, but find they're exhausted by stressful jobs and long hours. The assumption is that kids - particularly when they hit the teenage years - will fend for themselves. Is this what we want? A generation growing up with an absence of healthy role models showing them what a balanced life looks like? People often feel they've no choice. Stepping off the treadmill signals career death. It's HIGH TIME we re-thought the whole thing; and began to look for a different type of hero. Let's throw out the "driven workaholic" role models and instead take as the objects of our admiration those brave employees asking for better balance. If we change the stories we tell ourselves about what successful lives look like, we'll change workplace cultures. Then we can all be heroes by being there for the most imporant people in our lives - the next generation.

Our first campaign partner joins us

I'm delighted that Balance @ Work, the consulting arm of the charity Working Families, has become our first campaign partner. For those who don't know, Working Families is an amalgamation of two earlier charities, both of which campaigned for flexible and people friendly working practices. The first was originally known as the Working Mothers Association before changing its name in the early 1990s to PARENTS AT WORK. This change reflected the growing involvement of fathers in family issues and the desire of the charity to support both parents equally. The second "root" charity also changed its name - from the Jobshare Register to New Ways to Work. During the 1980s and 90s New Ways to Work produced a number of groundbreaking reports including "Change at the Top: Working Flexibly at senior and managerial levels in organisations" (1993) and "Flexi-Exec: Working flexibly at senior and managerial levels" (2001).

As a Trustee and Associate I've been involved with both organisations since the early 1990s and want to acknowledge their contributions to moving the whole flexible working agenda forward. We've all been campaigning for many years now, it's High Time things were different!

In the last few weeks I've been busy discussing the campaign with various other partners and supporters. I'm talking with a small graphic desing consultancy which is preparing a campaign "badge" for me. More of that shortly.

The High Time campaign starts here

January of any year is a good time to start a campaign, and January 2008 seems to me High Time to start a campaign to change the way we think about flexible working at senior levels.

According to the BBC "It's High Time" "is a formal statement that it is important that something happen soon or that something happen now. My sentiments exactly. And the "something" is a change in the way organisations approach the whole issue of flexible working for executive and senior managers and directors.

In a valedictory report last year, the Equal Opportunities Commission suggested a need to transform the way we work if Britain is to compete successfully in global markets. For this to happen both employers and employees must move away from seeing flexibility as a personal issue, negotiated as a concession from the 'norm' for specific caring reasons.

The argument for change is compelling. By 2010 (just two years away) less than 20% of the full-time workforce will be able-bodied white men in full-time work. Half of UK adults already want more flexible hours while 57% of part-timers and 1 in 6 parents of children under five would have made different choices if better flexible working options were available to them. It's been estimated this lack of choice is costing the UK economy around £23 billion (or 2% of GDP).

There's still a demarcation line in most organisations, above which flexible working is perceived to be impossible. And yet, as Amanda Morrison, Partner at KPMG pointed out recently "working flexibly is easier when you are at a senior level. Whilst you drive the work agenda strategically, you have a team to help actually deliver the work." (Hours to Suit)

No more excuses, it's High Time we did something.

This year the HalsAllan directors are rising to the challenge and running the High Time campaign. Throughout 2008 we'll be questioning outmoded thinking and working practices which limit choices at senior levels. We're focussing specifically on this group because these are the people who model what's rewarded in an organisation. Unless they're seen to be working flexibly nothing is really going to change.

Junior employees will continue to see a request for flexibility as career death. Those who ask will be judged as less dedicated to their careers, and will probably end up working below their skills level as a trade off for the privilege of being able to work flexibly. This is crazy in an economy which depends on high skills levels to remain competitive.

This blog is my "campaign diary". Over the coming months I plan to share information about our campaign partners and how we're progressing. More information about the campaign can be found on my personal website. Resources for those who want to join us in taking action have been posted on the HalsAllan website.